I haven't done a featured author post for a while - so here you go.
I came across Mac when I received a Google Alert for a new review of my book, Color Me Grey. It helped that he liked my book, but what inspired me to make actual contact were his threats to my health if he didn't like the other two books in the series. He made me laugh so I had to, just had to thank him for his review.
Since then, I've tried to keep up with his blog and have read a couple of his MANY available novels. I know I've found a great author and a great friend. I hope some of you will try his novels. I'm sure there is something he's written that will be right up your alley.
R.
Mac Wheeler (skip the 'R' if you're calling him for dinner, or most
anything else) has jumped out of planes, driven motorcycles like an
idiot, shot lots of guns (never with ear protection, what?), ridden
helicopters, rappelled down cliffs, explored mine shafts, skied on water
and snow, kayaked, had surgery on both knees and shoulders (thanks
mostly to basketball), and moved across the continent. Most days lately
though his weekly excitement entails a two hour motorcycle ride with his
Labrador, Molly (she wears Doggles; gets lots of camera action).
Otherwise he mostly sits quietly eight hours a day allowing his rather
sane but free flowing mind to cast plot ideas one after another.
A
native Texan (and proud of it; don't mess with Texas), Mac has called
South Florida home for the past twenty-five years (ahh, no dust storms,
just inconvenient hurricanes), where he and his wife lovingly bicker
about most everything (like folks in their fifties are supposed to)
between laughing at their three goofy dogs.
A former computer
programmer, project manager, and all-around nerd, Mac now focuses full
time on science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal that leverages the
quirkiness and emotions of real life more often than the farfetched.
You can click any of the covers to be taken to Amazon to purchase a copy of these books for Kindle.
The Black Lake Series
The Covenant ended generations of war between the races, separated the
combatants to the points of the compass, and delegated the Range as a
buffer between them for two hundred years.
Now the rich
highlands draw adventurous pioneers who brave the cold peaks to start
new lives. They stake claims, watch their neighbors with a wary eye,
care for their flocks, and hope to store away enough reserves to survive
the brutal winters. The majical waters of the Lake evoke fear, but the
gorges teem with game, which draws the dreaded orcs and goblins from the
eastern desert.
EXPIRING COVENANT unfolds in chapters that read
like short stories, slices of each character's life. But they flow
end-to-end to chronicle the saga of a people setting down roots as they
become a community, mix tales of shenanigans, tragedy, duplicity,
tolerance, friendship, love, and personal growth. The settlers learn
their neighbors (little people, humans, giants, and majical kind) might
not be the monsters tales are told of 'round winter hearths.
**********
If Laura Ingalls had been an ogre and her neighbors trolls, HAMLET
THRIVING might have been her story. But the characters of this fantasy
novel live in the highland Range, not on a prairie. They belong to races
that had been mortal enemies for millennia. The rich textures of their
differences, from tusks to dreadlocks and fuzzy feet, bring them
together as they battle the harsh living in the high peaks, and the
prejudice that seeps in from outside—still lingers in their own hearts.
In
this sequel to EXPIRING COVENANT, the second eccentric generation is
making its place in the valley, while the bulls of the first continue to
snarl at their neighbors over the checkerboard, and the hens compete to
make up the best lies during their quilting bees.
The chapters
weave an overlapping mosaic of tolerance, friendship, love, tragedy,
personal growth, and whimsy from the perspective of each unique
character’s point of view, like the gruff-talking dwarf who can’t hide
his enormous heart, the precocious ogreling who annoys and entertains
the entire valley with his antics, troll Eina who sees every hamlet
resident as hers to protect with an iron fist, Iza, conflicted by her
role as dominating queen dragon and loving companion to her bonded human
friend.
**********
The first time Morgan saw the human woman she almost crushed his ogre
skull with a rock from her sling. The warlock reached out to the
secretive female over the years, but she never wavered in her distaste
in having an ogre as a neighbor. She would have died alone in her cabin
if Morgan hadn’t seen the disaster. She should have escaped the flames
on her own, but was delirious, the first to fall ill to a plague that
would spread through the Range.
This sequel to EXPIRING COVENANT
and HAMLET THRIVING is a love story, a tale of the arcane, an epic of
friendship, jealousy, mistrust, and caring. The reclusive ogre is
beguiled by a creature he knows can never be his. Yet Morgan endeavors
to impress her and gets mired into affairs outside his world, surrounded
by forces preparing to clash.
As the epidemic spreads through
their community the two come together to wield the one thing they have
in common, the ability to draw from the ethereal, to heal. The witch and
warlock must also deal with secrets that torment and alienate them.
Pulled from one crisis to another, Morgan watches helplessly as the
witch befriends a dragonrider Morgan tries to hate, but can’t.
The threat of war and plague compels Morgan from recluse to leader, protector, warrior, and negotiator.
**********
Ogres and trolls aren't so much beasts as they are quirky neighbors with
severe underbites who dislike footwear. In this sequel to EXPIRING
COVENANT, HAMLET THRIVING, and OGRE WARLOCK HEALER, a young man learns
of character, integrity, and family—that all creatures are individuals
despite the generalizations he's been raised with.
Mourning his
mother's death in a recent plague and his father's desertion, Paul has
chafed long enough at the high peaks lair of the ogre dragonrider where
he's been stranded. The sixteen-year-old dares a mountain escape to
search for his father, but finds Northerners don't embrace strangers,
especially young men on the road alone, and it almost costs him his
life.
The Black Lake residents, giants and little people he's
been raised to distrust, nurse Paul from near-death, and offer him a
home. Morgan, the local warlock healer, claims Paul can reach the
ethereal. That's a surprise to Paul, but it explains the strange
sensations he's been experiencing, the visions and emotions that made
him question his wits. The warlock offers to apprentice him, however the
wizard council wants no others wielding the majic of the ethereal,
especially an ogre and commoner from the Range.
Paul and Morgan
join a wizard with his own issues and are drawn into northern intrigue
when the ancient queen dragon tells them they're fated to put down a
plot that threatens war. Paul and Morgan defy a council death sentence,
rogue wizards who hold Morgan's sweetheart hostage, a conspiracy, and
fickle dragons tempted to snack on them. Paul's majic must mature
quickly if he's to survive.
**********
Revenir Series
The night the five-thousand-year-old shapeshifter found the human
trespassing on her ranch, Renee was more in the mood for company than
killing. After all, she hadn't taken a lover in four decades.
Mating
within her kith is complex, and she doesn't get out of her plains
stronghold much. The modern world's contrivances sear Revenir flesh—as
though her kind's reaction to sunlight isn't bad enough. Besides, modern
humans tote too much baggage for her taste. Neither do they cope well
with the bloodletting Revenirs like with their sex. Also, they're
fragile, their lives terribly short. She's just getting them broken in
when they age out on her.
But this indulgence couldn't have come
at a worse time. Her clan is going to war, kithmen will die. Are her
adversaries humans out to eradicate Revenirs, half-breeds scheming to
overthrow their lords, or other Revenirs threatening her position as
queen?
Regardless, she accepts the blame, for turning a blind
eye to the endowed who've flaunted their race's existence. Retribution
looms. Dear friends and her new human lover are abducted. She throws all
of her resources into their return, the identification of her enemies,
and revenge.
REVENIR is an immortal fantasy with adult situations, violence, and lusting inappropriate for children.
**********
Sixteen-year-old Caitlin, privileged member (spoiled brat) of a secret
society she has no interest in, shares her overly-honest opinion in her
junior essay (she doesn't know how to keep her mouth shut), which places
her under her queen's scrutiny.
Instead of spending her summer
on the beach, she ends up working nights wearing an armored vest,
crisscrossing the nation chasing vampire hunters and miscreant kithmen,
noshing Nerd candies with her tweener sidekick.
The queen (who
loathes the term vampire) leads her clan in a two-front war against
rogue Revenirs (immortal shapeshifters), and humans determined to
exterminate what they believe is an insidious race. The clan's battle
meant nothing to Cait, but becomes personal after she sees another side
of her heritage, and learns more of the kith's complicated world.
Hanging
out with macho guys draping cannons from their shoulders is less
irksome than she expects. She survives a number of deadly scrapes,
creating a reputation for herself as she searches for her abducted
roommate.
REVENIR INTERN is a paranormal adventure that moms and
dads will be borrowing their daughters' tablets to read. Contains
gratuitous wisecracking and enough violence to generate a gross-out or
two.
REVENIR INTERN is a sequel to REVENIR.
**********
Shadows Series
Every interaction, decision, and social influence can drive a man toward good or evil, love and hate. The good can go bad, lovers can hate. The turning point can be subtle or dramatic.
Half-brothers John Ruud and Tony Rollins are as distinct as two raised under the same dysfunctional roof can be. One is an introverted, suicidal underachiever, the other a talented athlete, focused and driven student. Once best friends, they grow to resent and hate each other.
One sells dope. One is senior-class president.
One commits murder and the other goes to war. Their diverged paths
writhe-chaotic into a future neither planned, their careers seemingly
chosen by others, always at odds, fate determined by mistaken identity
and the death of friends.
The women who love them bizarrely weave their lives together.
Two Brothers is contemporary fiction, a story of coming-of-age, going to war,family, love, mentors and motivation.
**********
Whoever murdered Bea Ruud's rapist didn't do her a favor. The
investigating cop hounds her and her family, and they have skeletons
four decades old they'd prefer remained buried.
The man who
drugged and raped her had the kind of business associates that weren't
above knee-capping and castrating a double-dealing attorney. So why's
the cop obsessing about her?
Being a victim has overwhelmed Bea
for a year and her nightmares have resurfaced. Her entire life she's
battled overlapping shadows, but this latest is the darkest. To move on
she must fight a war with obscure rules.
Living in Shadow is
contemporary fiction-suspense, a sequel to Two Brothers Two Shadows,
contains adult dialog and situations, with the promise of romance the
protagonist seems incapable of grasping.
**********
Persona Kory May Series
Dying is a crappy way to launch a new career. Waking up in a body cast
with cracked vertebrae sucks. Befriended by a man that hurls her into
the middle of galactic intrigue, running for her life, downright bites.
As
though being born a dwarf in the fourth millennium wasn't bad enough.
Toni Tegaris started life in an institution, unwanted, endlessly
bullied. Luckily, she has a single edge—being very, very bright.
Her
lonely career path as a merchant space captain suits her. She busted
her butt to afford her own ship, one she designed, more advanced than
anything in the galaxy. Before she has the chance to take ownership of
the EUMV Kory Mae, her plan goes terribly wrong. Toni is forced to rely
on another for the first time, her self-exile from humanity interrupted.
Her protector has baggage of his own, which embroils Toni in
espionage and terrorism, between fanatics fighting annexation by the
Earth Union, and security forces willing to leverage anyone for their
own means.
Avoiding laser blasts and abduction attempts, she
finds herself in love with two men. Could they love her back? She
doesn't know how to let them.
**********
A potty mouth dwarf-eccentric-scientist, a fur-covered alien, and a sexy
Navy pilot are an eclectic trio to bring peace to a sector of the
galaxy that has been in turmoil for a millennium. Caught in three-sided
intrigue, they're asked to transport negotiators to a summit many don't
wish to take place.
With elements in each of the factions trying
to kill them, Toni Tegaris will risk everything in a scheme to isolate
empire builders and unite men seeking real peace.
Two brothers
in opposing camps are either smitten with her, or self-serving
money-grabbers willing to kill her if she gets in their way.
Latch your seat harness, you'll experience multiple gees and enough time distortion to send you reaching for an analgesic.
L1060 ACCORD is a sequel to PERSONA KORY MAE, followed by FIRST CONTACT and TAIL KICKER.
**********
In the first exploration outside the galaxy, the crew of the Kory Mae
travel to the dark edge of the universe, to a rogue solar system,
searching for the origin of a telepathic greeting.
The two-year
mission challenges the seventeen, each with dreams and hopes,
relationships and baggage, lives placed on hold. Isolation and the
physics of accelerating by the speed of light every quarter of a second
will punish them. They confront isolation, greed, politics, disease—and
most surprising, arcane forces.
If they fail, there is no
rescue. To survive, everything must go right. They have two advantages:
the most advanced craft ever designed, and the brilliant physicist who
built it, commanding the mission.
FIRST CONTACT is the third volume of the PERSONA KORY MAE series – science fiction meets fantasy.
**********
This SF adventure ricochets between prison breaks, conspiracy,
shootouts, assassins, corrupt cops, conflicted love, and arcane
mysticism, tempered by a motherly artificial interface.
Angel
careens from her safe career managing cargo in the Merchant Corps to
dodging plasma charges and bombs. She's been stalked by a peculiar
savant with an eerily similar history, who recruits her into the
Marshals Service to corral the EU's gamier residents in the galaxy's
frontier.
As marshal-pilot of the newly commissioned Tail Kicker,
Angel stumbles from one ohcrap to another. The royal-blue armored vests
the marshals wear are more like bull-red targets. They attract bad guys
with a profound hatred for the elite officers of the Service. Angel's
never taken a last name—Claypigeon would fit.
TAIL KICKER is the fourth volume of the PERSONA KORY MAE series.
**********
Other Novels
The world is facing Armageddon, and Margarite's brother is responsible,
at least for the three discoveries that make the destruction possible.
Reggie is a medical researcher and he's engineered a targeted bio-weapon
that can be distributed by the most common kitchen pest. As thanks, he
expects he and Margarite will be killed to tie up loose ends. They don't
know who they can trust, but they're committed to sabotaging the trial
release, finding and destroying all trace of the bacteria.
As
though Margarite doesn't have enough on her shoulders, she totes around a
ton of family baggage. Her parents were unloving, alcoholic wackos who
splattered themselves into a highway abutment two years ago when she was
fourteen. She was left alone with Reggie, who is sixteen years older
than her, a genius with Asperger syndrome incapable of sharing the love
Margarite craves. They face multiple conspiracies and authorities who
consider Reggie a terrorist. Their neighbor could be a spy using his own
son to get close to them. The father figure she is drawn to may not be
who he appears.
They are lucky bunglers, if you consider being
bludgeoned, exposed to a deadly pathogen, shot, isolated, and pursued by
maniacs, as lucky. Margarite repeatedly stumbles into the midst of
thugs, witnesses ruthlessness and competence she couldn't imagine from
her brother.
**********
The remnants of society rot. The privileged get a five-hundred calorie
meal pack every day. The dead are dumped in landfills, or left where
they fall. Thirty-three years after extremists released the engineered
virus, the Centers for Disease Control is the last governing body. The
transition from finding a cure to administering what is left, never set
well with anyone. The resentment may drive the rumors of conspiracy. But
too many CDC administrators survive, and any focus of finding a cure
appears abandoned.
Jason Kates believes he’s searching for a way
to feed the starving that remain in the Eastern cities, but his
assignment to cross the lawless lands to reach the American heartland
may be a pretense to get him killed. He's an outsider to the CDC
hierarchy, and there are dangerous secrets to be kept.
Clueless
to what he's facing, and suicidal, Jason partners with a road-wise girl
who tries to carjack him. He needs the value of her harsh experiences.
She needs the nutrition bars he carries. Their sarcasm-laced
relationship grows as they careen through evermore dangerous obstacles.
They discover little more than empty prairie until they stumble upon the
proof of conspiracy, which propels Jason into a far more challenging
role.
**********
Appearing in the spirit world with no memory is like a jagged shank in
the eye. No one met him to show him the ropes. No user guide. Worse than
having no name: unable to sense the passing of time—the disjointed
emotions, history and future of the live-ones he's near flowing into his
head uninvited.
Once he adjusts to his depression, he seeks
purpose in his perpetuity. A fellow spirit insists they can't interfere
with the live-ones. It makes things worse, the ancient teen claims. That
appears true quickly enough when his meddling throws those he tries to
help from irritating situations to life-threatening ones. As though it
isn't tough enough to fall in love with someone who can walk through
him.
Wheezy, the local medium, though sweet as can be, is no help. Actually, she enables his tampering.
And, there's the six-year-old he knows will become a serial killer.
WHEEZY
is a paranormal novel filled with quirky characters, live and dead
thugs, evil lawyers, conspiracy, unrequited love, and a passel of
spirits each with unique abilities.
**********
An autistic man living in a group home, a
slacker, and two brothers with an ocean under the bridge between them
are an unexpected foursome recovering bail jumpers and fugitives. More
unexpected, their success. And luck staying alive.
It helps that one of them has a little unnatural help.
And that he can hack any computer network.
SEEker
tilts with masculine wise cracking, guns, weight rooms, and basketball
gyms, balanced with the sentiment of tough guys accepting a challenged
man and his wimpy friend, insight in what creates bonds between men.
There's gratuitous lusting, shooting, falling in love, shooting, pickup
trucks, shooting, a sexy FBI agent, beefy men, and of course an evil
antagonist.
SEEker is a suspense, adventure, paranormal, bounty
hunter tale that leaves open the possibility that the dork can get the
babe.
**********
Whew! He's got a few books out there, doesn't he? If you are interested in any of these titles you should be able to go to the purchase page simply by clicking the cover.
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